Grooming
by sugarpolis
Summary: Natsu spends too much time in front of the mirror that morning so Lucy decides to find out why. Canonverse. NaLu.


**Grooming**

**Summary: Natsu spends too much time in front of the mirror that morning so Lucy decides to find out why. Canonverse. NaLu.**

**Notes: As usual, this is set after the Alvarez arc and before the 100 years quest.**

* * *

"Natsu, are you done yet?"

"Wait a sec," came the hurried reply from the dragon slayer.

Lucy frowned. It wasn't usual for Natsu to spend his time so long in front of a mirror. What was more, since they woke up that morning, Natsu seemed troubled. He didn't really want to tell Lucy what his problems were, but at this rate they were going to the guild late. So Lucy wanted to handle the matters in her own hands.

"Natsu, what's wrong? You know you can tell me, right?"

Natsu jolted up at Lucy's voice as if he had gotten caught in a criminal act. His shoulders slumped down, "it's nothin' important, really…"

"I can tell it's important to you, don't lie to me," Lucy replied, concern in her voice.

Natsu was focused again in front of her mirror, trying to do something with his bangs. He ran his fingers through his bangs as he increased the heat of his palm. Small puff of smoke emerged between his fingers. After he lifted his hand, his bangs were done the way he usually did it everyday.

He sighed. "That will do for now."

"Is there something wrong with your hair?" Lucy asked. Seriously, he was weirder than usual, and he still called her a weirdo.

"Nope. Now let's go to the guild!" he reassured her with his signature grin. Lucy couldn't help but brushed him off for now.

* * *

At the guild, Lucy could see Natsu was struggling with his bangs again after he fought Gray. She noticed that he got his bangs down more often than usual. Well, heated battles with strong enemies sure had impacts to his bangs, but, a brawl between guild mates rarely made his bangs stick down to his forehead.

Lucy face palmed. Natsu's bangs were not important to be analyzed. But if that was what took him so long in front of her mirror…

An imaginary light bulb appeared above her head.

Then Lucy's eyes were at Natsu again. He seemed distracted so that he stopped fighting Gray and plopped down next to her with a huff. The celestial mage smiled, clearly amused.

"So… Natsu, is there something wrong with your bangs?"

Natsu, once again, almost jumped on his seat. "Wh-wh-what makes you say that?" he asked nervously.

"Nothing. It's just…" Lucy pretended to think as she tapped her lower lip with her pointer. "I found a bottle of hair gel on my desk yesterday."

Natsu's ears perked up at that. "R-really? So where is it now?"

"I threw it away because I don't know whose hair gel it is," she sighed, clearly lying about throwing away the hair gel because she just moved it to another place. Sure, she already figured that it was Natsu's, thinking it was for pranks but when she saw all colors drained from Natsu's face, maybe she was _really_ wrong.. Then she smirked. "Or.. is it yours, Natsu?"

The dragon slayer blushed before he turned his head away.

"What if it is?"

As soon as he said it, his bangs came down, earning a groan of frustration from him. Lucy laughed right away. Oh my god, he was so cute!

"Natsu, it's okay to use hair gels. Though I never knew you ever need one," Lucy said after her laughter died. "In fact, I have never seen you use hair gels in the past years."

"Gildarts told me to," he mumbled bashfully. "He recommended me a lot of … men grooming products too."

Lucy's jaw dropped. This was a new revelation that she had never thought would ever happen. Natsu Dragneelㅡhe was capable of taking care of himself too.

Now that he mentioned it, Lucy actually felt that he was a little different now. He smelled so nice and sometimes she purposefully leaned into him to smell him more (alright, she sounded like a creep but she was only ch-checking, okay?!). His face, however, looked a lot much cleaner and clearer. At first, she thought that he just shaved, but apparently that wasn't _it_. He also started to take baths more often than before, not to mention he sometimes spent thirty minutes inside her bathroom. Oh Mavis, why hadn't she realized this sooner?

She could feel tears prick on the corner of her eye. Natsu Dragneel was growing up!

"Oh, Natsu, it's really good to see you grow up. Gildarts made a good choice of telling you to do that."

"Eh, whatever. It's not like he forced me to," Natsu gave up on fixing his bangs. "I just.. want to do some changes, 's all."

"Why?" she found herself asking. The back of her mind told her that he wanted to impress someone. But that was impossible, wasn't it?

He shrugged. "If I wanna be with you, then I figured that I should look nice too."

Silence.

"Did flame-brain just confessed?" Gray's voice broke the silence. Gajeel smirked from afar, Levy and the other girls smiled teasingly, Erza stopped eating her cake, Mirajane almost dropped glasses of beers, Cana whistled and other guild members only stared at them expectantly as if wanting them to kiss.

Lucy's face was set aflame; she didn't know that the guild members were eavesdropping on them!

Oh, so much for privacy in Fairy Tail.

Natsu himself, was shocked. He surely didn't plan that little slip-up. Who was he kidding? This was _not _how he wanted to confess to Lucy!

"Damn it," he muttered.

Before he buried his face in his scarf, Lucy placed both of her hands on Natsu's cheeks. He looked up at her, cheeks slightly red.

"What?"

"Natsu, remember this. Whoever you are, just be yourself. You're worth enough already to be with me," Lucy said despite the fact that all eyes were on her. She was blushing, she was embarassed, but she didn't care; she needed Natsu to know that she loved him the way he was.

At first, he was stunned, but then he smiled gratefully.

"Thanks, Lucy," the dragon slayer in front of her responded. He then leaned into her ear to whisper, "though, it still doesn't hurt to take care of myself, so don't you worry, babe. We're both worth it."

She was really taken aback by his newfound pet name for her, so she hid her flaming face in his scarf instead. Natsu laughed loudly, hugging her as the guild erupted into cheers.

As the guild suddenly carried on with a party (because of course, every good news in Fairy Tail must be celebrated with parties), Lucy spent the night snuggling Natsu's chest, secretly loving his scent mixed with the new perfume he wore.

"You know, Natsu, maybe we can go shopping together later," Lucy suggested, kissing his lips lightly, "We'll buy new grooming products for you, too."

"Yeah, okay," he responded as he nuzzled into her neck, genuinely loving the idea.

Unknown to them, far away, Gildarts sneezed.

* * *

**Hey, just a quick oneshot I made because I just wanna get rid of my stress in real life lol, sorry if it seems rushed. It's based on my headcanon: Natsu uses hair gels! (Even though in Tenrou he just increased the heat of his palms to style his bangs) I'm not really confident with this story because I've been writing other oneshots too but I decided to post this one first.. so pls tell me if you liked it! That means a lot for me!**


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